*dates subject to change, always check online or here for the most up to date information.

All camping dates are included at the bottom of this Weekly Wire and on the CWM website.

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This Week…in the Weekly Wire!

Mission Conference 2018 in Regina, SK

Canada West Mission Conference photos, video and more!

Meadow Ridge Neighbourhood Party photos

Norm Olson’s 100th birthday pictures

Men’s Retreat Hills of Peace

Singles Retreat Samish Island

Peace and Justice Newsletter

What’s Up…In the CWM –time to submit articles

eLearning Temple School Courses

– new registration process -new classes

Community of Christ App

Shopping on Amazon.ca

Links to our Worldwide Ministries website

We want you to ‘like’ our CWM Facebook Page

2017/2018 Camping Dates

Quote of the Week

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2018 Mission Conference August 31 – Sept 2

Regina Saskatchewan

Guest Minister President Steve Veazey

I know it may feel early, but I encourage you to reserve your hotel rooms as soon as possible. Labour Day weekend is a huge football weekend in Regina and all of the hotel rooms will be sold out soon for the Saturday night. We have a group rate at the Ramada Plaza use code

This hotel is 4.5 km from the Regina church. There are other hotels closer to the church, but the rates were substantially higher and we wanted to make this weekend affordable for everyone who would like to come out and see President Veazey. Please feel free to book anywhere you like but again, we urge you to do that very soon. You can always cancel your room closer to the conference if needed.

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We’re accepting submissions for the fall edition of

What’s Up…In the CWM

Tell us about what your congregation did over the summer, or what you have planned for this fall and winter.

Samish Island Campground has an opening for the Food Service Manager/Caretaker. If you have US or dual citizenship and are interested, go to the Camp Samish website.

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Norm Olson’s

100th birthday celebration!

Norm had vistors from BC and Alberta, and received a birthday letter from the Queen. There were many birthday cards, including one from the folks at mission conference depicting a train and driver by Gary McDonald, a binder full of memories prepared by Kelly Duff and sent in by all of you, and a video of the entire mission conference body, singing happy birthday to Norm.

Norm said his secret to a long life was to keep breathing!

Happy Birthday Norm!

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Men’s Retreat - Hills of Peace

September 22-24

Although I consider myself quite proficient at math, I am a bit less confident when dealing with anniversaries (fill in your own life experience or joke, whichever is easier) so I am relatively confident we started men’s retreat back in 2006. I can name most of the guest ministers and I can tell you that Jae Senga and Gregg Lester are the only two men to have attended all of the weekends. From the get-go we kept it simple. Pick a weekend; the 4th one in September. Pick a format; a few classes, some free time, some spiritual stuff. Pick an eating frequency; often. Pick a guest minister; somebody from away. Just to show you that I like to mix things up, this year our guest minister has been found in our own back yard (2,906,280 square kilometers so it’s a big yard). Steve Thompson has graciously accepted the invitation to lead us through a weekend focusing on spirituality and technology. Steve has chosen the theme of “At the Table with Christ: Cell phones OFF or ON?”. You should come just to find out the proper etiquette!

By this time you know the drill. We meet at Hills of Peace on a Friday night, September 22. We have a well-planned mixer that challenges at least two thirds of us, no matter what it is (Jae has been planning this one for a year). We eat and eventually hit the hay. Saturday Steve will engage us in several sessions (whose titles are a closely guarded secret), we’ll hang out, we’ll eat a lot of pie, we’ll have a camp-fire and play a variety of card games with cut-throat intensity. Sunday we’ll quickly clean up the camp and Steve will be the guest speaker at a communion service and then we head for home.

So you could stay home and do yard work, watch TV, go to church and see the same people you saw last Sunday...It’s not a bad second choice (do not tell the people), but why not get in the car with some male friends and come to Hills of Peace. Like anything legendary has ever happened on a road-trip or at Men’s Retreat.

Remember, Jesus invited a few of his buddies on a road trip and that seemed to turn out pretty well.

Do you want or need to take one of the Ministry and Priesthood classes, but live classes don’t fit your schedule or they’re too far away? Canada East and Canada West Mission Centre’s announce our next elearning Temple School classes:

Introduction to Scripture - (Class required for all new ordinands) This class, taught via video by Tony and Charmaine Chvala-Smith, helps students understand responsible scripture use and exegesis. Note: This class requires access to a library with bible commentaries and reference sources.

Ministry of the Disciple - This class explores discipleship in Community of Christ and explores the mission, message, and beliefs of the church.

Dates: October 7 – December 2 – Classes cover a chapter per week – students can work on readings and assignments ANYTIME Saturday through Thursday each week! This schedule will make allowance for time off during both the Canadian and USA Thanksgiving.

Registration open now through October 7 – first come, first served, limit of 25 per class.

To those seeking a spiritual home, Community of Christ is a welcoming, loving, worldwide faith community that values the worth of every person as a child of God, and provides a safe space for you to explore and deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ and each other.

In Community of Christ, you will receive love and support as you discover renewed purpose for your life through compassionate, Christ-like service that ends suffering and fosters justice and peace.

In 2012 and again in 2014 this newsletter highlighted actions and concerns related to the plight of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma. While most people in Burma are Buddhist, and there are other groups and conflicts, the Rohingya have been marginalized for decades, officially deemed immigrants from Bangladesh.

Being stateless means diminished rights in an impoverished area. It also means voiceless and thus open to increasing conflict and violence. From our longitudinal study of Darfur, when people who want a nonviolent resolution, find all such avenues fruitless, eventually a few may take up arms both for protection and to highlight their case to the world. Thus fast forward and we find again this is the case.

But the government disproportionately cracked down not simply on the insurgents but the entire Rohingya population, resulting in a UN official indicating the government’s response appears to be a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing. There have been over 400,000 displaced, with many villages burned, and an unknown number of people killed or raped.

The violence must be stopped, a path to full inclusiveness for all provided, and human rights violations on all sides must be investigated. The following petitions address two audiences. Avaaz {the site we sometimes use to explore the influence of massive petitions, in this case now over one million signatures} is targeting those governments supporting Burma’s military. The Amnesty International petition is aimed directly at Burma’s military Commander in Chief. Please consider signing both.

Nobel Peace Prize Laurate Aung San Suu Kyi: While previous newsletters gave her silence the benefit of the doubt, it is time to side with Desmond Tutu’s response where he pleaded with her to speak out for justice and unity and cautioned that “If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.”

The action on this issue from the last newsletter was part of efforts that may have helped dissuade the Trump Administration from lifting sanction on Sudan. However that had a three month timeframe which is almost up now. So new efforts are needed to help maintain the sanctions until Sudan changes its action and addresses the marginalization of all its peripheries, most especially Darfur and South Kordofan / Nuba mountains. As noted before, the lifting of sanctions was shocking to many Sudan watchers, including myself, who feel it was based on murky logic (see Current Status, June 25, [UntilAll.org] or the Background links below).

Thus there is urgent need to tell President Trump not to permanently lift the sanctions. Even if one felt progress was being made, six months is far too short, as Human Rights Watch argues, below.

This newsletter has taken action to safeguard environmental activists throughout the world, and for good reason. This year saw the most deaths ever. While India had a three-fold increase, Latin America remained the deadliest region. Mining, oil, agriculture and logging were the industries most associated with the deaths. Most environmental activist killed in 2016 [Globe and Mail]

In a sad note over the summer, Liu Xiaobo died. He helped lead the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy uprising for which he was imprisoned. Upon release he continued to lecture about democracy and human rights, including helping to draft Charter 08 which laid out the comprehensive changes needed, such as a new constitution, for legislative democracy. He was imprisoned again where his health deteriorated.

About This Blog

The CWM Weekly Ann­ounce­ment blog keeps you up to date with what is happening in the Canada West Mission. It is usually published every Thursday – enter your email below to automatically receive every new post in your email inbox.